The man accused of strangling the British teacher Lindsay Hawker and burying her in a sand-filled bath has admitted rape but insists that he strangled her accidentally as he attempted to prevent her calling for help.

At a pre-trial hearing this week lawyers for Tatsuya Ichihashi, 31, said that he would plead guilty to charges of rape, unlawfully disposing of a body and causing injury resulting in death, which carry a sentence of between three and twenty years in prison. But he will deny murder, which can carry the death penalty in Japan.